


echo chamber

by Hugabug



Category: Buhay Kolehiyo, SSU, Sexy Sexy Universities
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Male-Female Friendship, Mental Anguish, Multi, References to Depression, Talks of being numb, Vulnerability issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-09 00:05:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11092740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hugabug/pseuds/Hugabug
Summary: "I've been feeling hollow lately."





	echo chamber

**Author's Note:**

> over the past few weeks I've been dealing with some baggage and usually to be able to process it all, I would journal.
> 
> but since school is out and I have more time, I decided to put unnecessary baggage to good use by making fanfiction. so, if you will, please enjoy my inner demons in the form of anthropomorphic universities.
> 
> (also I wanted an excuse to call Neo "Chicky")

****"I've been feeling hollow lately."

Mia quirks an eyebrow. "I thought you were feeling hallow all the time."

Neo huffs, a corner of his mouth lifting before quickly falling flat. "I like your pun."

"It wasn't even a good pun, who uses the word hallow in a joke?" Mia scoffs, rolling her eyes. There's a careful edge to her tone, firm but gentle all at once. Kid gloves. Something about it makes Neo freeze like a deer in the headlights.

He turns away.

A moment passes by, heavy and thick with silence, making Neo sweat despite the cold. Outside, the rain still falls, the sky a grey blanket over the smoke that rises from the cars in the middle of mid-day traffic on Katipunan. Inside, a barista calls out a name.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Neo tilts his head to one side, and then to the other, taking a sip of his latte before turning to his friend with a smile. Not a yes, not a no. It isn't much, he knows, because Mia sees through all of his bullshit, but he does it anyway, shrugging at the hint of concern shining out of her green eyes.

"Have you... talked to Salle about it?"

Again, Neo shrugs. He accompanies it with a small frown, too, just for good measure, and tries not to think about how dangerously silent his chest is at the mention of his boyfriend's name.

"Do you want to talk to... someone who knows what this could be?"

"Bulatao* isn't free after the fourth session."

Something shifts in Mia's eye. Shit. He shouldn't have said anything.

"What's going on?" She asks when he turns again to sip from his cup. It's lost some of its warmth, yet the drink's peppermint chocolate notes still melt on his tongue. It's why it's still his favorite, after all this time. He tries very hard to reach out for the giddiness that ran through him the first time he'd ordered this on a cold, dreary day.

He wants to cry when he finds nothing. But even that feels far away.

"I'm looking at the world through a glass box." He finally says, nodding toward the window in front of them. Water runs down, distorting the colours outside. "Everything's muffled and my entire body feels like it's stuffed with cotton."

Mia leans over, trying to catch his eye. "Numb?"

"No."

Not numb. He felt angry when Phil had cursed out his uni's administration, and Salle's smile still makes him want to smile, too. Those, he knows, were genuine. The rest of the time, though, he's on autopilot. He'll laugh because everyone else is laughing, and he'll nod his head sympathetically at all the right times. But when he reaches out and tries to feel things the way he used to, he comes up with a manual that tells him how to react, how to go through the motions. The sentiment and the emotion is there, but it's small and minute and it makes him feel sick.

He isn't numb. He's hollow. And being hollow just makes being sad so much easier.

"I'm suppose to feel more than this." He says, calm and collected, even if the gears in his head were turning on over drive. "That overwhelming feeling that used to fill me up after a high grade sa orals or after I complete an accounting sheet without having to do it thrice, I should be feeling that. Not this--"

"Echo chamber?"

When Neo looks at Mia, her eyes meet his. Knowing.

"Come here." She says, opening her arms in a silent offer. He takes her up on it and buries his face in the crook of her neck. She smells vaguely of vanilla and green tea, comforting and wise, and he closes his eyes as she runs spindly fingers through his hair. In his ears, the beat of her heart pounds.

His chest weighs a ton all of a sudden, even if there really isn't much in it. "Is this what it feels like to be tired?"

Mia laughs. "Yeah."

"How do you deal with it?"

The chuckle she lets out is quiet. "I rest." She replies, jostling him a bit as she shrugs. "It's not good to feel big things all the time. I go home. I lie down. I journal. I talk to Iya. The normal stuff."

"That sounds right."

A pause. Then; "There's a 'but' in there, I feel it."

"A butt?"

"Anthony."

Neo smiles, because she sees right through him, and he pulls away. Mia stiffens around him for a split second, resistant, but that doesn't last long.

She lets go with a tug at his hair. "Talk."

"I'm scared to make him home." He sighs, the words well thought out and measured, fears plaguing him since before his being tilted itself too far and emptied out. "Missing him was already a shock, and that was before we got together. What more this, diba?"

Mia shakes her head. "It's like we switched places."

It's Neo's turn to chuckle. "The irony."

"'Intimacy is the act of giving one's self without loosing one's self.' You told me that."

"It sounds easier said than done."

"But I did it, didn't I?" Mia smiles, reaching up to pinch his cheek. "You and I have the same vulnerability issues. I just got over it sooner than you did."

Her hand feels warm against his face and he leans into it. There's something in his chest now, still small, still muffled, but he can feel it, a pulsing confusion of affection, exasperation, and trepidation.

He knows she's right. He just doesn't know if he can do it.

He says this out loud, and Mia rolls her eyes.

"Ikaw? 'Di mo kaya? Asa."

Neo smiles and traps her hand under his own. "Thanks, Mia."

Mia's answering smile lights up her whole face. "I'm happy to help, chicky."

**Author's Note:**

> *Bulatao - basically a psychiatric clinic within Ateneo whose services are offered to the ADMU population (especially students-- kaso 'di na siya free after the 3rd or 4th session (they do their best to connect you to other, cheaper psychiatrists if you can't afford it though)); named after Fr. Bulatao, the famed Jesuit psychologist (and also occultist-- he had a working third eye, but that's a story for another day)
> 
> come scream at me on twitter (@shekinah_mikael), I like making new, screamy friends


End file.
